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Babylon 5 - 1x4 "Infection" - Full watch-along (Patreon)

Published:
2026-05-12 18:00:03
Imported:
2026-10

Content

Follow along with me using your own copy of the episode!

Files

Babylon 5 - 1x4 "Infection" - Full watch-along

Comments

Emma

Every series has its equivalent of Spock's Brain.

Emma

It is a Doctor Steve episode, along with Jeff and Michael.

Emma

Good to see perms come back in the 23rd Century

Paul Hess

you gotta pay your dues to be initiated into the B5 fan club and this is how

Emma

We cannot tell you if your questions will be answered or not.

Emma

King Lear Act 4 Scene 1: "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!"

Emma

The Effects team obviously figured out how to do computer-generated lightning. They used it for Trakis's glove in the last episode and are making full use of it in this episode as well!

Emma

I'm only getting started 🙃

Trish

David mccalluem was on man from uncle and NCIS

Emma

For what for me (and many others) is a bad episode, there are some good takeaways. This was the very first episode of the series that was produced; the writing, the scenario, all of this is rather rough. JMS is still trying to convince WB that this is a weekly SF show, so here we are with a man in a suit and prosthetics doing a Monster of the Week. However, JMS sneaks in plenty of themes, nuggets and Easter eggs in the episode, almost none of which I can expand upon. The scene between Garibaldi and Sinclair at the end is touching and still enjoyable - B5 does well with one-on-one conversations, which can make it feel a bit stagey, but I like the dramatic input. These are two characters who share a background, as Garibaldi mentioned to Mary Ann Cramer: they crashed on Mars and had to make it out of the desert together. Speaking of Ms Cramer, Sinclair's answer at the end is a good ending, backed with suitably poignant music. B5 can apply the sucker punch in the close to make you go away and think.

Andrew Mortimer

its a skip episode on a rewatch for me, monster of the week format, though you need to watch it once for the little bit of world buildings and character backstories. appears near the bottom of many peoples rankings

StuArtist Studio

I'm going to make a controversial statement. I thoroughly enjoy this episode, if for no reason, than as a Babylon 5 TTRPG 1st Edition GM, running an IPX campaign, it fits in well with my game. But I like it also for other reasons which I cannot explain without giving spoilers. Nuff said...

Emma

The titles often have multiple meanings or interpretations. For this episode, JMS goes whole hog. Ostensibly, this is how Nelson is taken over by the organic technology, now serving its programming. But we can also see a wider theme where these war machines worked to cleanse Ikaara VII of that which was not pure; the life on the planet was viewed as impure or alien, and the machines worked to cleanse the infection. In Star Trek: TMP, V'Ger viewed the carbon-based units on Earth as an infestation that needed to be purged. This is the old trope of the Created turning on their Creation. Lovecraft has it in At the Mountains of Madness where the Shoggoths destroyed the Elder Things that had created them. You saw it in Forbidden Planet, when the machines created by the Krell long ago enabled the Id Monsters to materialise and wipe out this noble race. Side note: Hendricks alludes to HG Well's War of the Worlds: "There's a Martian war machine outside. They'd like a word with you about the common cold." This is a counter case where the Martians controlling the machines got infected and were themselves killed. Finally, we have Franklin mentioning how there is a growing pro-Earth movement back home. This separatist ideology is spreading from person to person.

Emma

And his character sacrifices himself for Dickie Attenborough in The Great Escape.

Emma

Whenever someone in a show says "Readings go off the scale", I always think back to Spock in The Corbomite Manoeuvre.

Emma

Tyrell Corporation, Weyland-Yutani, now IPX and a Bioweapons division. Those poor corporations get a bad rap in the future (or alternate past).

Emma

In his closing speech, Sinclair (JMS) tries to cover many cultures and continents in a short list, covering contributions from North America, Africa, Asia and Europe.

Emma

Near the beginning, as Henricks is trying to convince Franklin, who seems ambivalent, he picks up a club-like artefact in a potentially threatening way. Nelson notices and reacts, expecting that Hendricks will use it on Franklin.

Texas Anla'Shok

Well, Larry DiTillio did come from the tabletop industry.

Texas Anla'Shok

JMS related a few amusing anecdotes about this episode: first that while they were filming this, he was meeting with some executives and had Marshal Teague come over and kick the door in and then JMS "ordered" him to stand down. Needless to say it made an impression. And you can guess, that suit got very hot and he sweat so much they had to cut holes in the feet to let the water out. JMS would go and ask him if he was alright, and Marshal would respond in character, "Yes, I am fine." So, the worst is behind you, at least as far as general consensus goes. There are others coming that some consider the worst, but in general the quality of the show is an upward curve.

StuArtist Studio

Mind you, this episode fitting in with my campaign isn't the main reason I like it. But all of my other reasons would definitely be spoilers.

George N

i mean, this certainly isnt as stupid as Spocks Brain and *certainly* is no Holiday Special!

George N

Every time Bunny catches a reference I want a clip of Captain America saying "I get that reference!"

George N

Explaining the ages would be a spoiler Bunny ;) A few weeks ago in the chat from the pilot you mentioned that only one of the first batch of episodes didnt land... I knew instantly this was the one. The first 40min of the episode are just so generic. None of the ambassadors are around, This could be any space show, its as if the episode was written by a freelance writer who hadn't seen any produced episodes... unfortunately this episode was written by series creator JMS. No excuse. Sigh... there is some decent stuff in the denouement (look it up kids!) but not enough to redeem this episode... sub par filler episode. So very disappointing... but that final speech.. 100 years, 1000 years or 1 million years... I wonder if that will come around again?

George N

BTW the black outfits security and Sinclair wear are supposed to be body armour... that's how Sinclair survives a hit.

George N

Was I the only one waiting for Nelson to throw out a "HA HA"?

Emma

Well, no Wookies are watching VR porn, so point taken.

Emma

Sinclair, wearing the body armour and trying to protect the station from the alien, is not a million miles removed from the armoured Ikaaran war machine.

Paul Hess

Based on number of comments in the thread, I now know this is @Ian's favorite babylon 5 episode ever!! 😜

Emma

'What I've done?' Oh, Mister Hess … I have not even started with this yet.

Emma

Though it is no utopia as imagined in Star Trek, this future vision of Babylon 5 does feature positives and is cautiously optimistic about a coming together. Earth seems to have been 'unified' for now, while the council on B5 reflects a United Nations, with a security council of 5 permanent members, alongside other League worlds. Tennyson's Locksley Hall (1835) features an unnamed narrator (who joins the military) who is spurned in love. He has a vision of a future and also dreams of the past, and compares the two and decides that the future is worth striving for. Lines 119-128 are: For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm; Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. It has been stated that Winston Churchill considered it "the most wonderful of modern prophecies", and Harry S. Truman carried the words in his wallet. This dream of a future Parliament of Man and of aerial navies was probably read by JMS when a student. It is why Sinclair looks to the future and strives to make the work of the generations that came before have meaning. The name Locksley also made an impact on JMS, who wanted to pay homage to it.

Emma

How dare you break rank and enjoy this episode!

Mark Gosine

It's not that bad. Ohh, and you may wanna ease off the caffeine. 😅

Mark Gosine

A middle of the road episode for a sci fi show. But on the lower rungs of any Babylon 5 episodes. Sinclair character always thought was somewhat flat even when he was emoting. I grew to like him OK. The rest of the characters I love.

Texas Anla'Shok

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a Londo fangirl.

Texas Anla'Shok

I think Franklin's objection to Vance is more along the lines of Ian Malcolm's objection to John Hammond: "You read what others had done and took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any of the responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped in on a plastic lunchbox and now you're selling it!" Though in this case he'd probably say it more like, "You patented it and weaponized it and now you're selling it to the military."

Paul Hess

It’s nice to have a sideshow with a difficult episode. A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down!

Mike Yocom

First Age: species doesn’t have spaceflight/hasn’t encountered other sentient species yet Second Age: spaceflight and has made contact with other sentient species The definition of Third Age is super spoilery, so I’m skipping it.

Philip

Dr. Benjamin Kyle, played by actor Johnny Sekka, was in the pilot "The Gathering."

Philip

While "Infection" wasn't a particularly strong episode, it did have its moments. We learned more about Sinclair and Garabaldi's friendship. Sinclair's remarks to the reporter at the end of the episode talked about the inevitable destruction of Earth that we (talking about our own reality, not the show) know will happen when the Sun expands. There were also a couple golden nuggets hidden in the episode, but you'll just have to wait to eventually look back at those like we who watched the show when it aired had too : ) .

George N

'I'm getting your message - are you getting mine?" *shudders*

MertzRocks

As dumb as 'Spock's Brain' is, I always loved it. THERE, I said it! I love 'Spock's Brain' (I hear Pee-Wee in the distance shouting, "So why don't you MARRY it!?" ) Episodes like, 'The Mark of Eden', 'The Lights of Zetar' and 'The Empath' totally made me snooze. At least '...Brain' was funny... ish... 😜 This ep I do take with a grain of salt. This is one of those you kind of grit your teeth through - even when you love this show as much as I do (and so many of YOU do!). Now Joe isn't going to knock every episode he writes outta the ballpark, as much as he tried to. When you write 92 out of the 110 episodes in the show, it's just not gonna be possible! And there is a S3 ep that HE might argue is also a contender for this show's 'Spock's Brain', if you will - y'all know which I mean, no need for names (or prime numbers...).

Emma

I don't like the not-blink intense staring eyes acting when confronting the Ikaaran war machine. Michael does better acting in other episodes.

Greg

I ALSO really liked this episode, first time seeing it.

Greg

I actually LIKED this episode quite a bit, and am surprised to find out it has some hate. Perhaps due to this being the first time I've seen it. But usually I tend to like episodes more with repeated watching and the passing of time, so I doubt I'll think less of this episode later on (although it's possible). There's nothing really original here (it's full of tropes and ideas from classic sci-fi) but it's well acted and well directed, looks great, and has some nice character moments. The speech at the end was a good touch, and I like the heartfelt speech between the two friends at the end, reminded me of McCoy and Kirk there. The Doctor seems....fine. I think he's the weakest character so far, but it's so early, a lot can still happen. I ALSO wondered about The Third Age reference, good to know it will be explained at some point. BTW Bunny usually we are referred to being in the Information Age now, stating roughly about 50 years ago when the last age, the Industrial Age, ended.

Matthew Graves (Graviton)

This was odd. It actually felt like it could have been a Trek TOS episode. But without quite the same spirit of bold fun. Not that I didn't like it, I just think they have a better handle on the political stuff with the alien ambassadors than with this type of story at this point. I actually think the strongest parts were the ending scenes, where the various plot threads got wrapped up. Sinclair definitely has damaged goods vibes. Interesting. A side note: At about this time, thew whole idea of "biological technology" was a huge fad in sci-fi, particularily the idea of living space ships. There were a couple of series based around the concept (Farscape and Lexx) and just about every other TV sci-fi franchise at least played around with it.

Stainless Steel Cat

He also played The Invisible Man in the '70s TV series - my favourite version of the story, even though the effects probably look quite ropey to today's audience.

Harry S

All humans have a percentage of Neanderthal, Donovan or other extinct human species. Neanderthals lived in Europe and had blue eyes and blond hair. Humans that migrated to Europe and interbred with them likely got that from them. Possibly red hair as well. Neanderthals may not have died out. They just kept interbreeding with humans until they were mostly human.

Matthew Graves (Graviton)

Strictly speaking. Neanderthals were humans. Taxonomy is messy. Of course, that’s kind of the point. Any classification of someone as “other” is at best scientifically shakey, and more likely simply arbitrary.

Thomas Schorsch

Sinclair probably survived that first hit because he had gotten Tularr angry. Just after that Tularr strikes Sinclair with his arm instead of shooting him. Tularr probably wanted to first punish Sinclair for challenging his ideology. The reptilian brain can't win an argument through discourse. It wins by violence, by getting the opponent to submit after no longer being able to resist. This is how fascists work.

William Terry

I liked the power arm effects, with all the detail and work going into the Nelson costume. David McCallum being sidelined for most of the episode, the exposed head of Sinclair absorbing the energy attack and the transformation of Nelson were somethings that needed fixing. I loved the inclusion of gun battles and a rousing Kirk-type speech. It sounded like something from the Estate of Andy Warhol because all the art was from the late twentieth century.

Jack

This was definitely one of those "the show is still finding its footing" episodes. I agree, any episode without Londo or G'Kar is diminished by their absence. There is much, MUCH better to come, but there are still some highlights, particularly the friendship between Garibaldi and Sinclair, and the hints of Sinclair's PTSD from the war. I have to say, while the mid-90s CGI space effects are pretty cheesy (the effects they were doing over on TNG with traditional models hold up WAY better today, and did even then), their alien/creature make-up was spectacular. That's owing to their creature effects make-up being done by the late John Vulich and his team at Optic Nerve Studios, who would go on to do creature effects in many other projects, notably the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel TV series. Fantastic stuff! It would have been nice to see the reporter lady be more nuanced and persuasive rather than abrasive and pushy. She actually has a valid point: the Babylon project is an expensive and dangerous undertaking, and it's fair that the Earth Alliance public gets to see why they should put themselves out there. Sinclair's answer reminds me very much of Elon Musk, who has expressed similar concerns that if humanity doesn't become a spacefaring race, it could be lost forever. (Although the sun is estimated to have about 4.5-5 billion years left so we have some time. Also, thanks to evolution, the earth creatures that are around to actually witness the death of the sun will be as different from modern day humans as we are from plankton, but that's a different discussion. 😉)

bunnytails

Yeah, it looks like every episode will have great character moments, even if the episode as a whole isn't above average.

bunnytails

The talk about humans being different from today when the sun dies reminds me of a certain Dr Who episode. "Moisturize me!"

Baulderstone

I think it's a case of you judging the episode on its own merits, while all the veteran fans are judging it in the context of the whole show. It's like how old fans complain a lot about season 1 being "bad", and even encouraging people to skip it (which is a terrible idea). I expect you'll probably enjoy this episode even more the second time. I think that's true of almost all of season one. If season one has a flaw, it's that it plays its cards very close to its chest. I've always loved season one on repeat viewings, as there are so many subtle things you miss the first time. And that is something else I love about this show. It's very re-watchable, especially if you can find a noob to come along for the ride with you (or just find a quality reaction channel, like this one). And it's not just finding new details that makes it fun to watch again. It has such great characters that I am happy to visit again and again. I think that's the key to great TV show. This isn't my favorite episode, but I always look forward to moments Garabaldi confronting Sinclair about all the risks he is taking. I'll also add, that's a really clever character trait to give Sinclair. With shows like Star Trek, you always have some fans asking why the captain should be delegating all these kind of risks. Rather than just relying on the standard answer of "He's the main character on the show", JMS clearly thought about that issue and gave Sinclair a reason to behave that way.

Baulderstone

Nice detail. I've never noticed that before.

Baulderstone

I was in a B5 RPG campaign in the the '90s while the show was still in the air. I'll need to wait a few seasons before I can share any details about it though.

Baulderstone

Dr. Kyle was the doctor in the pilot. Watching the pilot is indeed a double-edged sword. Having introduced a lot of people to the show over the years, my current advice is to start with "Midnight on the Firing Line", watch a few more episodes, then go back and watch the pilot I think it's too important to skip, but it's not the best place to get a sense of what the show is like. I found your thoughts about Franklin's opposition to "grave-robbing" interesting. I agree it's not a black and white issue. I think that's one of the interesting things about the show. It raises questions a lot of times rather than just telling what it thinks the answer is. And you are completely right that not having biotech puts Earth at a disadvantage compared to the Minbari. Remember that it's already been established that the only reason Earth wasn't wiped out in their war with the Minbari was that the Minbari simply stopped for unknown reasons. And, yeah, Londo does make an episode better, but I am still glad they didn't cram him into every episode. And as a final thought, this probably wasn't a great episode to watch while tired. Anyway, As a new patron, I really like the discussion going on here. Money well spent. Now to make some time to watch your reaction to "The Parliament of Dreams".

Baulderstone

That's really interesting. This has always been one of my least favorite episodes as the main plot does feel very cliche compared to most of the show. After three episodes that develop the world and characters in interesting ways, this one feels too much like it is trying to be Star Trek. Nithing against Star Trek. I love Star Trek as well. They are just different things. Even though it's bad by B5 standards, I don't hate it. David McCallum is one of many fun British guests stars we get on the show. And there are a lot of subtle things worked into the cracks of the episode.

Baulderstone

The makeup on this show is fantastic, and the remasters really show that off. A lot of old shows end up looking worse in HD, but the remaster really lets you appreciate the hard work that went into makeup and costumes on this show.

Baulderstone

Thanks for sharing that. I've never read any Tennyson.

Baulderstone

It is an odd choice to center an episode on a brand new character, especially when that character spends a lot of time with the guest stars rather than the main cast.

bunnytails

Thanks for sharing! I'm glad you're here!